WP Clickcha for those of us Captcha Challenged

I hate most Captcha applications. Sometimes I don’t even bother leaving a comments when I see the captcha. I always check that first before I even start writing a comment.

The other day I was on a site where I wanted to register. Another place where captcha is used. It took 3 tries before I could get past the captcha.

I don’t think there should ever be a zero “0” or an “O” in a captcha. But this one . . . like I said it took three tries to figure out the combination.

I had a friend trying on the same sight who did a screen capture and we figured it out from that. This brought captcaha to my immediate attention again and I decided to check out a new one I had just spotted.

I have used “Peter’s Custom Anti Spam” plugin for years. It works very well. It requires a word not just random letters and it is a short word that makes sense. It is also in really big text.

WP Clickcha

But They Are All The Same Size !

The thing I like about this plugin is it is logic based. You click, not type to answer the question.

I’ll test drive this plugin here at the Lab. You tell me what you think of it and how it works for you. I’ve never been disappointed in Peter’s Custom Anti Spam plugin. But I’m all for making this process as easy as possible.

Unlike Peter’s Custom Anti-spam clickcha doesn’t distinguish it is me logged in. I have to fill in the captcha to comment from the front end. Peter’s is smart enough to know I won’t spam myself and doesn’t require me to use the captcha. This is something the clickcha author might consider adding in the future.

Setup is fairly simple once you activate the plugin go to the settings page. Fill in your email address and apply for the API numbers you will need. They will come in an email, but you won’t have to fill it in the settings page. At least I didn’t, they auto filled almost as soon as the email arrived in my inbox.

I usually post a link to the plugin. In this case I don’t have to. They provide one for themselves as part of the captcha. If you can’t get past the captcha let me know what browser you are using. Anyone that finds an issue with this and can’t leave a comment use the contact form. There’s no captcha on it. At least I don’t think there is.

UPDATE

This past week I got a shout out from Kristal Kraft over our Skype IM saying she couldn’t leave a comment because clickcha wasn’t showing up. GREAT. The structure of this plugin is such that it relies on another site to provide the captcha. If it is down, no one can leave comments on your site. That was enough to quickly and forever bring about the removal of this plugin.

Lesson to Learn

If a plugin effects a “Mission Critical” part of your blog (like being able to have readers leave comments) you don’t want it dependent on a third party site being up. For example is is one of the big reasons I would never have my comments handled by DISQUS.

Clickcha could be short lived here at the lab. Here is why. I often respond to comments from the comment admin panel. But clickcha doesn’t allow this. You have to go out to the post to reply to a comment.